“How long until you’re gone?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
Camilla, bless her, tries to help. “She’s going to stay with us until she’s on her feet again. Leo was sick for a week, and she lost her job over the missed shifts. She’ll find a new one. We’ll figure it out.”
The room goes very quiet.
Duke’s eyes move from Camilla to the suitcase against the wall. To Leo, who has ditched the fruit snacks and is running a toy truck across the coffee table. Then to me.
“You lost your job.”
“I got fired.” I say it flat. If I put anything on it, anger or shame or the hot sting that climbs my throat every time I think about it, I will fall apart in front of him, and I will not do that. “Leo had the flu. I couldn’t go to work.”
“Where were you working?”
I sigh. “Does it matter?”
“It matters.”
“Billing office. Medical group in Tucson.” My chin lifts. “It’s fine. I’ll find another job.”
“And now you’re sleeping on Camilla’s floor with a kid?”
“Couch,” Camilla corrects gently.
Duke looks at the couch. It’s a loveseat—five feet long, max.
A door opens down the hallway. Camilla’s husband, Tom, comes out in gym shorts and a T-shirt, hair still damp. He stops when he sees Duke. They know each other. Everyone in Ash Valley knows the Kings. The recognition is instant, followed by the specific discomfort of a civilian standing in his own living room with a patched outlaw MC member taking up space.
“Hey,” Tom says.
Duke nods.
Tom looks at Camilla. Looks at the suitcase. Looks at Leo, who is now trying to eat a block. “Babe, I need to talk to you for a sec.”
They disappear down the hallway. The murmur carries. Not what he’s saying, but the shape of it. I know the conversation. Having me there while they have a newborn is too much.
He’s not wrong. And he’s not cruel about it. The apology was there before he even opened his mouth. But the math is themath. Two bedrooms. A newborn. A toddler who doesn’t sleep through the night either. Camilla would let me stay forever, but her husband has a limit, and I can’t blame him for that.
But I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have a family. I’ve been alone since I was sixteen, and I ran away from my foster family.
Duke is watching me. “I have a house.”
“No.”
“Four bedrooms. Sits on a couple of acres outside town. It’s quiet. Fenced yard.”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”
“Two of those bedrooms have been empty since I bought the place.” He puts his hands in his pockets. Casual. “Leo can have his own room.”
“Duke, I am not moving into your house.”
“It’s not moving in. It’s a place to stay until you sort out a job and get on your feet.” He pulls one hand free, runs it over his jaw. “The house is clean. I’m gone twelve hours a day. You won’t even know I’m there.”
Yes, I will.
I will know he is there every second. I loved him when I left, and I love him now.